Ready made furniture is designed, engineered and manufactured to the highest standards by in-house or sometimes external designers from well known furniture manufacturers from all over the world. These designers get the support of a designated team to take their design from design stage to final product.
Of course there are many advantages of using in-house resources: they have available tools, such as factories and staff, to manufacture a long lasting product which will also be available in their portfolio for the future. The end product meets, and in most cases exceeds all relevant test criteria for strength, stability, environmental friendliness and ergonomics, ensuring fitness for purpose.
With ready made furniture, you will receive a warranty period of 1 or 2 years on some of the parts. However, they state very clearly, that their standard warranty on seating products is conditional upon the seating being used in a normal office environment and subjected to normal usage of, on average, 40 hours per week. But, you can always order extra spare parts to maintain the products to their best. There are some Dutch furniture manufactures which have been using the same superior products for over 30 years, with some minor spare part changes, they can even last that long!
For example Ahrend has proven this with their Mehes collection, which was used by Fosters & Partners for the HSBC Headquarters in Hong Kong in 1984 (the furniture is still been used today). In the year 2002, Fosters & Partners have again used the Ahrend Mehes collection to refurbish the HSBC Headquarters in London.
This means, if you ever plan to expand your office, you do not need to go for a totally different look as far the furniture is concern. You just need to give ONE call to Royal Ahrend and you will have your second order, matching your first order!! Isn’t that fantastic!
Custom made furniture is generally designed and manufactured by a local company in your country. This process will allow you to work closely with a designer (hand in hand) to design the ideal furniture piece that will fit the room, resulting in a custom made piece for your office/house/boat, etc.
Most probably, there will be only 1 piece manufactured and that is for you only! Unlike the ready made furniture, which you can find in every brochure/magazine and showroom, custom made is unique with your specific chosen finishing details.
Of course this will also be well designed, engineered and manufactured in a factory with experience and knowledge. However, usually only 1 year warranty is given on their products. The damage control with custom made furniture is lower than with ready made furniture. Because of the used materials!
In my years of experience within the industry I have found that a combination of using standard desking/seating/storage plus bespoke pieces at the reception areas and/or conferencing areas will result in a great office lasting many years and is a great solution!